Urban Sims

The so-called heresy crusade order was loudly clamored and a little scary, but it was vulnerable to Zhou Ming's fully weaponized army.

The first ten years of the Thirty Years' War.

On the vast and stretching battlefield, the millions of troops organized by the Holy Alliance many times and Zhou Ming's more than 200,000 conquering legions fought seven battles and hundreds of small and medium-sized battles. With their superb personal command art and battlefield With the staff system, Zhou Ming won every battle.

For more than ten years, the Holy Church Alliance lost more than 5 million troops, while Zhou Ming's loss was only a fraction of the opponent's, less than 50,000.

The expansion of territory carried out to reward military achievements after each major victory allowed the territory controlled by Zhou Ming to expand from 5 million square kilometers to more than 10 million square kilometers, occupying one-tenth of the entire western continent.

The war has reached this point, and the Holy Alliance has lost hundreds of games in a row. Even its top leaders, even if they are pigs, know that they must take it seriously. After getting rid of a group of generals who relied on their titles to sit on the throne, among the middle and lower-level officers, , promoted a group of outstanding officers who were brave and resourceful but from lower backgrounds. The promotion criteria were also very clear: as long as he could kill more than 10 musketeers in a battle, he would be promoted to a commander-in-chief. A general with thousands of people, if he kills more than 100 musketeers, he will be promoted to a general who commands thousands of people.

If more than 1,000 musketeers can be killed in a battle, it will be a great victory that will shock the entire Holy Alliance. Waiting for the general to command this victory will be a king and the commander-in-chief of 10 The position of Marshal of the Holy Alliance Army with more than 10,000 people.

If the record is higher, he can only be awarded the position of Grand Marshal who leads the Million Saints Alliance Army.

Franstan, a low-level officer in his thirties who was the son of a baron, was originally just an ordinary knight captain (with only a dozen knights under his command). Through his wonderful performances in several battles, he became a leader in the Holy Alliance. Under the military merit reward system, he quickly stood out. In just five years, he rose from a small knight captain to the general marshal of the million-strong Holy Alliance army.

Through battlefield observation, Franstein discovered that the musketeers of the Conquering Legion had dense formations and high lethality, but they also had weaknesses, that is, the shooting interval was too long. After multiple rounds of shooting, due to the heat of the barrel and the fatigue of the shooter, the subsequent shooting speed would decrease. The accuracy and accuracy will drop sharply, and the greatly increased error rate will cause misoperation and explosion accidents, and even cause a lot of staff reduction.

In plain terrain, as long as they can withstand up to five rounds of concentrated fire from firearms within a charging distance of 300 meters, the musketeers who enter into close combat will have the bayonet in their hands in front of the spear and heavy sword in the knight's hand. Like a paper tiger, it will break as soon as you prick it.

Therefore, in several field encounters Franstein fought, he found that as long as he concentrated high-mobility troops on plains or downhill terrain that was conducive to heavy cavalry charge, and broke through at a certain point of the opponent's musketeer array, Even if they have to pay a heavy price, as long as they seize the opponent's firepower gap for even half a second, the ensuing battle will be a fight with close casualties on both sides.

However, what really made Franstein stand out and enter the stage of history was that he discovered a fatal flaw in the musketeers, that is, on rainy days, the misfire rate of the firearms in the hands of the musketeers will increase linearly, even if there is Some firearms can still be fired, but the power of the gunpowder is greatly reduced after being dampened, making it difficult for the cavalry to cause fatal damage even if they charge within a 20-meter shooting range.

On a thunderstorm evening, on a relatively flat terrain, Franstein led his knights and obtained 10 musketeer heads at the cost of losing five people. From then on, he was out of control, and even After creating a record of wiping out thousands of firearms regiments in World War I, the senior leaders of the Holy Alliance were asked to use the captured muskets and artillery to analyze and imitate them. They used espionage methods to learn the names of the three raw materials for preparing black powder. I don’t know the specific ratio of gunpowder, but by testing the ratio of three raw materials (there are still sulfur and saltpeter resources in the western continent, but they are too far away from Zhou Ming), it took three years to form the Holy Alliance Army. A low-profile firearms unit with a number of about 5,000 people was formed and participated in actual combat.

As a result, on the battlefield, the 5,000-man firearms force of the Holy Alliance, which took three years to build at a huge cost, and the firearms team of the Conquering Legion faced each other for three rounds before completely collapsing. Finally, they were defeated by the cuirassiers. The entire army was wiped out after chasing and killing, and the loss to the conquering army may be less than 500 people.

Even so, the Holy Alliance's firearms unit still gave Flanstan great confidence, because the Holy Alliance army finally had a military unit that could compete head-on with the Conquering Legion, and with the Holy Alliance's strength, it was ten times more powerful. For the land and population of the Gangduo Kingdom (forgive the author's bad taste, I really won't name it), if this kind of war of attrition continues, even if the battle loss ratio is 10:1, the Gangduo Kingdom will not be able to survive sooner or later.

Moreover, the Kingdom of Gondor is not entirely united. There are at least more than twenty small and small countries at the forefront of the battlefield that do not quite obey King Edward's orders. In addition, the six major forces that have always been important forces within the Kingdom of Gondor Kingdom (the six old earls have passed away one after another, and now all new ones have taken the throne), he has been very close to him in the past few years. He even obtained some physical machine tools and steam engines from these six kingdoms and carried out reverse imitation. In the end, although the imitations were crude and extremely inefficient, they were still much more efficient than the pure handwork of craftsmen. For a time, the level of technological development in the Holy Alliance was closer to that of the Gangduo Kingdom.

In the upcoming decisive battle, Flanstan has already made good contact with these six kingdoms and their affiliated forces...

…

Western continent, central part.

On the vast plains of Loktiva, there is a white hill that rises abruptly.

A large flag made of fine iron with a copper-plated surface, with a diameter as thick as a fist and a height of more than 30 meters, with a red background and gold border and a large banner with crossed wheat ears under roses, was erected on the hillside called "White Mountain" Above, strong winds gust and sway, like a dazzling sun among the thousands of military formations surrounding the arch, attracting countless planets.

"You have been fighting with me for more than ten years, Flanstan. Your growth really surprises me."

Zhou Ming, riding a horse and standing on the white mountain, with wrinkled eyes, weathered face, and white temples, was holding a pair of binoculars in his hand to observe the military formation on the opposite side, and couldn't help but sigh.

It was this tenacious opponent who, after causing repeated losses to his conquering legions, forced him to speed up the development of flintlock muskets, 12-pound cannons and explosive shells, and in the tactical specifications of infantry and cavalry, He improved the tactics of hollow phalanx and cavalry wall charge, and defeated Franstan's army many times.

Franstan, who was "taken care of" by Zhou Ming, had a close brush with death dozens of times, and almost died in battlefield pursuits and assassins' poisonous swords.

Today, the invincible Flanstan came again, bringing with him a new legion built by the efforts of hundreds of kingdoms and the church's last bag of gold coins.

This new army of more than two million people includes 500,000 heavy knights wearing double-layer plate armor, 500,000 firearms equipped with more powerful muskets and artillery, 500,000 heavy crossbowmen, and 500,000 equipment A regiment of barbarian light cavalry used as cannon fodder at the front of the military formation.

Suddenly, after seeing a new unit that he had never seen before in the telescope behind the barbarian light cavalry regiment, Zhou Ming was slightly startled, elephant cavalry? This is a war elephant cavalry regiment composed of more than 10,000 war elephants. After these war elephants are all covered with shiny black armor, the giant monsters more than three meters high seem to be more terrifying than tanks in the real world.

"This tactic is brilliant. First use barbarian cannon fodder to attack our military formation, then let the elephant cavalry follow up, then charge with heavy cavalry, then use heavy crossbowmen with a longer range to shoot at each other, and finally use the firearms corps to mop up the rear... this The tactic of destroying a fully firearms unit has a high probability of being realized in theory, but..."

This tactic, after Zhou Ming gave his nearly 100,000-man Guards Corps a comprehensive replacement of breech-loaded ammunition, using new breech-loaded rifles with fixed copper-shell powder bags and pointed lead bullets, the number of loaded shots was reduced by ten For shooters with several steps, the burst rate of fire generally reaches more than 8 rounds, and the maximum range exceeds 1,000 meters. Rifling is also carved on the inner wall of the barrel, and the accuracy is also greatly improved.

In addition to the powerful 12-pound cannons that can fire explosive shells, Zhou Ming brought 500 of them this time. A round of heavy artillery blasts. No matter what kind of arms you come up with in the cold weapon era, they will all be turned into scum for me. .

"Woooooooo~"

"Dong dong dong dong~"

On the vast battlefield, two legions that had been facing each other for a long time began to move forward like a wall amid the sounds of bugles and war drums.

"￥ # % @!" The barbarian light cavalry screamed incomprehensibly, whipping the horse desperately and rushing over.

"Bang bang bang bang!" There was a gunshot like fried beans.

"Boom, boom, boom, boom!" The heavy artillery roared together.

"Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah!" The barbarian light cavalry fell on their backs, as if they were pierced by countless lasers and blasted by meteorites. Amidst the screams, a pile of red, yellow, and Garbage in white and other colors pollutes the environment here.

"Om~ Om~" "Come on!" "Aw~! Aw~!"

The War Elephant Legion launched a charge. The war elephants, like a swarm of tanks, stepped forward with thick legs, swung their long trunks, and roared, bringing great shock to the Conquering Legion.

"Boom, boom, boom!" The heavy artillery began to roar again. The blooming shells released bright fireworks one after another among the war elephants. The sharp iron nails and high-speed fragments splashed out, destroying the heavily armored group. The war elephant, who didn't seem to be afraid of pain, howled and screamed, and ran in all directions. After entering a state of berserk, it trampled its own army into a mess.

Zhou Ming, who defeated the two troops under Franstein in a row, suddenly received an urgent report from a commander.

The 200,000 kingdoms on the right flank of the guarding army and the allied forces of more than two dozen kingdoms suddenly defected and rushed towards the central army formation!

"These insatiable white-eyed wolves, rebels!"

Zhou Ming cursed loudly. He never had any expectations for these six greedy kingdoms, nor did he expect these white-eyed wolves to be of any help. He dragged them to the battlefield just to prevent them from causing trouble in the rear.

I also heard from intelligence personnel that these rebels were in cahoots with the enemy, had evil intentions, and suddenly rebelled on the spot, which was completely normal.

So Zhou Ming put them all on the right wing, equipped with some muzzle-loading muskets that were several generations behind, to prevent them from rebelling.

"The Hit Army will protect the right wing and wait for the rebels to arrive and annihilate them together!"

Zhou Ming's Chinese army formation has a total of 300,000 people, and all the most sophisticated and advanced firearms are equipped here. The backlash of the 200,000 rebels will only increase the ammunition consumption.

"Oh no, Your Majesty! The left-wing army also rebelled. They didn't obey the orders of the central army at all, and instead accelerated towards the central army!"

Another command soldier conducting battlefield observation hurriedly reported.

"What?!"

This unexpected situation was a bit beyond Zhou Ming's expectation. He was not surprised by the rebellion of the right-wing legion, but most of the 200,000 troops in the left-wing legion were vassal troops from his kingdom, and they fought with him in both north and south. For more than 20 years, they were all trusted by him, and the equipment they were given were not bad. Even these people rebelled?

"Could it be..."

Zhou Ming thought that in order to unify the preparation and rational utilization of various mineral resources in the kingdom, he had implemented the reform of converting shares into shares and state-owned mines in the kingdom in recent years. Although the vassals below were somewhat dissatisfied, they converted into shares. After that, the dividends received every year will not be too small, it can be said that they are still considerable, but these vassals chose to betray themselves because of a few mines?

These people couldn't wait to rebel before he even implemented reforms that might create greater changes in the county system and the separation of military and political affairs?

Suddenly, on the battlefield, Zhou Ming's 300,000 Chinese troops were jointly besieged by 2 million Holy Alliance troops and 400,000 rebels.

Faced with a siege that was nearly ten times his own, and a battlefield environment with no danger in the vast plains, Zhou Ming realized that he seemed to have been caught in some conspiracy. He could only fight and retreat until the food, grass and ammunition in his hands were exhausted. Before, break out of the siege and return to Gang Duo.

But the pursuers behind him were like brown candy, chasing after them and unable to get rid of them no matter how hard they tried. They marched hard during the retreat, which covered thousands of kilometers.

"Your Majesty, please leave first. We will cut off the throne for you. The kingdom cannot live without Your Majesty. We deserve to die!"

"Your Majesty, let me stop those shameful traitors! We will make them understand that even with only bayonets, one of us can kill ten of them!"

Zhou Ming did not expect that after the ammunition was exhausted, those who rushed to defend him were actually these mercenaries and mercenaries who he once regarded as "disciplined", "greedy for life and afraid of death", and "only interested in money". These mercenaries and mercenaries, after following him in the north and south for decades, have long since wiped out all of their original characteristics. They only have the desire for military success, the yearning for glory, and the unyielding loyalty to His Majesty the King. .

With tears in his eyes, he silently escorted these fearless rearguard troops to stop the wolves and bite the tigers. After they all finally fell, Zhou Ming took his Guards Corps, which numbered less than 30,000 people. Returning to Gangduo, after replenishing a large number of Guards veterans and ammunition, they immediately launched a counterattack. In more than thirty battles, they annihilated 600,000 pursuing troops. In addition, they destroyed millions of enemy troops on the frontal battlefield and during the breakout. After the Battle of Baishan, both the Holy Alliance and the Gangduo Kingdom suffered heavy casualties and were exhausted.

Some parts of this chapter may not be reasonable, but within the protagonist's kingdom, the backward feudal system must be reformed. This is an opportunity to make a big break, and things will be easier to handle later.